Straight Drive

I recently had a friend of mine ask to use my car for an errand. She wanted to know if it was a "straight drive". Everyone around her looked puzzled. I knew she meant manual transmission, only because I spent a few years living part time in Asheville NC. In the days before Craigslist, I would buy the .50 trader paper and was amused by the use of the term "straight drive" to describe anything with 3 pedals. This description was used in about 75% of the ads.
Meanwhile an hour away in East Tennessee the term is uncommon enough that it causes perplexed expressions. Is this a truly Western North Carolina thing or has anyone else heard it widely used elsewhere?

I've heard it often, but I've lived in NC all my life.

I've always heard a manual described as a "straight drive" … but I also live in Asheville …. so …

for that matter I seldom hear one described as a manual … almost always as a straight drive

I've never heard that phrase in my life. Chicagoland born and raised, central Illinois now.

Never heard it in my portion of the great white north.

Never heard it. Born & raised in StL.

Only place I've heard that expression is near my parents' house in Greensboro, NC.

Never in Arkieland.

I've heard it before, but it isn't common down here on the coast.

Never heard that term here in OK, or on the internets until right now.

Heard it here in VA. Straight drive and straight stick are common.

I don't remember ever hearing that term, but when you wrote it in your post I somehow suspected that was what it meant, so who knows....

Sounds like a Cahlahna thing to me. Never heard it before in my life, internet or no, and I've lived in the Delmarva area all my life except a few years' stint in St. Louis.

Raised in Northeast Tennessee from 2 till 18.

Straight Drive was a common term.

Maybe generational issue, or just Knoxville problem?

I've heard; straight drive, straight shift and standard shift. From southern Ohio but spent time in east TN.

Makes perfect sense, if you think about it...

(a) the crankshaft is connected "straight" through to the rear tires (i.e. 100% mechanical connection)

(b) It is the opposite of "fluid drive", an early name for MoPar automatics (and automatics in general).

I grew up in Ohio, North Carolina and West Virginia and since lived in Florida, New York, Idaho, Connecticut, Washington, Virginia, Alabama, Minnesota and now a different part of North Carolina and until this thread I don't think I have ever heard of the phrase. I thought this thread was going to be about a car with no transmission or something.

Heard that all my life, but there's all kinds of descriptions in the biz. My favorite is 'dogleg', that's because the shifter is bent like a dog's leg.

wbjones wrote: I've always heard a manual described as a "straight drive" … but I also live in Asheville …. so … for that matter I seldom hear one described as a manual … almost always as a straight drive

Do they refer to "automatics" as Insert homophobic slur here Drive?

I never heard 'straight drive' until I moved to the Asheville area.

Never heard it before here on the left coast.

I would think an automatic would be straight drive because of the (fairly) straight movement down the shift column vs an H pattern stick shift.

Flight Service- I was in Morristown for 25 years before moving to Knoxville. It was commonplace to hear it on the "other side of the mountain" but I never heard it in Tennessee except in Greeneville.

Is that a reference to straight drive as opposed to a column shift?

A column shift works through a complicated linkage, but a straight drive (aka 4-on-the-floor) connects straight to the transmission.

windsordeluxe wrote: I was in Morristown for 25 years before moving to Knoxville.

You have my condolences on both locations.

Greenville...getting closer to the mountains. Maybe it's a hillbilly thing. Heard it in Newport, Erwin, Elizabethton, Hampton, Bristol, Kingsport, and Johnson City.

We had a debate about this in school and if I remember correctly we called a straight like an old Ferrari where the lever stayed at a constant angle when it slid through the gates. So it was a sub set of manuals. At least to our 14 year old brains that had never actually seen a Ferrari outside of a TV or a Car and Driver.

I've never heard that term up here in Connecticut. I'll have to ask the chauffeur.